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Group hopes 'Detroit Dollar' pays off for biz

Other Rumblings

For the second time since the Great Recession, Detroit may have its own currency.

Al Bogdan, consultant and head of AAB Development Strategies LLC, is hosting a community meeting at the downtown Park Bar on Wednesday to discuss the idea.

The goal of the group, dubbed Detroit Dollar Co., is to recruit 1,000 Detroit businesses in two years to use the Detroit Dollar to promote a "buy local" mentality.

The group hopes to have $1 million worth of the currency in circulation in the next two years.

The Detroit Dollar is designed to operate as an electronic payment system from smartphones and computers for use in Detroit, Highland Park and Hamtramck.

To spur the program, users will be offered a 10 percent discount on Detroit Dollars. In other words, $100 is worth 110 Detroit Dollars.

John Linardos of Motor City Brewing Works, Tim Tharp from Foran's Grand Trunk Pub and Jerry Belanger of Park Bar funded a 2009 effort to get the local currency called Detroit Cheers off the ground, but that effort didn't get momentum.

The most-successful local currency is the Ithaca Hours in Ithaca, N.Y., which has been in circulation since 1991.

As many as 900 businesses and individual service providers accept Ithaca Hours.